To encourage this trade, the counts of Champagne, in northern France, initiated a series of trade fairs.
6 fairs were held every year in the chief towns and at these fairs, northern merchants brought the furs, woolen cloth, tin, hemp, and honey of northern Europe and exchanged them for the cloth and swords of northern Italy, and silks, sugar, and spices of the East.
As trade increased, demand for gold and silver coins arose at fairs and trading markets of all kinds.
Slowly, a money economy—an economic system based on money, rather than barter—began to emerge.
New trading companies and banking firms were set up to manage the exchange and sale of goods.
All of these new practices were part of the rise of commercial capitalism, an economic system in which people invested in trade and goods to make profits.